


Wolves of That Sort

by myrtlebroadbelt



Series: Four Seasons [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Hobbits, Storytelling, The Shire, Winter, Wolves, Young Bilbo Baggins, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5317964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myrtlebroadbelt/pseuds/myrtlebroadbelt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the first night of Yuletide, young Bilbo Baggins hears his cousin tell a story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolves of That Sort

**Author's Note:**

> “There were no wolves living near Mr. Baggins’ hole at home, but he knew that noise. He had had it described to him often enough in tales. One of his elder cousins (on the Took side), who had been a great traveller, used to imitate it to frighten him.” - The Hobbit, Ch. 6 

Bilbo shivered at the feeling of frost seeping through his mitten and nudged Sigismond to slide over. There were half a dozen hobbit children crowded onto the blanket, and Bilbo had managed to find himself dangling on the very edge, caught between the winter-coated grass and the close-knit warmth of his cousins.

It was the first day of Yuletide, and the Shire had awoken to discover itself draped in a thin veil of snow, turning everything as far as the eye could see, from the orchards to the inns, a hazy shade of grey-green. Heaping breakfasts and even more heaping second breakfasts had been eaten indoors by the fire, but elevenses found fauntlings outside scraping snowballs off the postboxes to throw at each other. By afternoon tea their parents and even grandparents had joined them, the steam from their mugs mixing with the vaporized laughter that escaped their mouths as they watched their little ones play.

The evening brought feasting, under the hills and over them, in fields and beneath trees. The hobbits wrapped themselves in wool—save for their feet, which were woolly enough—and gathered bearing pots of mulled wine and barrels of hot apple cider. Lanterns were hung and bellies were filled with foods sweet and savory alike.

Bungo and Belladonna had ushered Bilbo out of Bag End just as the sun was beginning to set, but as they crossed the bridge it had all but disappeared. In its place arrived a sky full of stars and the distant hum of merry music, the source of which Bilbo believed to be magical and unexplained. That is, until they found a trio of his Took uncles plucking strings and guiding bows with cold fingers. The rest of the family surrounded them, scattered at first but huddling closer as the night grew darker and the chill deeper.

“Button up, my boy,” Bungo had said to his son. “Let’s tie this scarf a bit tighter, shall we?”

He’d fussed over Bilbo the entire walk, worried he would catch his death in this weather. Perhaps he should have used less morbid phrasing, as it set Bilbo himself to fretting.

“Mama,” Bilbo had said, wiping his runny nose on the back of his hand and promptly receiving a handkerchief from his father, “you should wear your shawl.”

“My goodness, isn’t one of you enough?” Belladonna had laughed. “Very well, if young Mr. Baggins insists, I will wear it.”

And with that she had taken the garment—a thick weave of black and white yarn—from its place at the crook of her elbow and wrapped it about her shoulders, pulling the edge over her head like a hood for emphasis.

A bonfire had been built, and beside it now sat Bilbo and the youngest of his cousins, their knees tucked under their chins and their gazes fixed on Fortinbras Took, a hobbit who exceeded Bilbo’s age by only twelve years, yet had already run off on more adventures than anyone could count. He’d returned prepared to tell his stories to anyone who would listen, and his young cousins were always the most eager candidates. They believed every word he uttered, no matter how many times they heard their parents assume in hushed chuckles that he was prone to exaggeration.

On this crystallized winter night, Fortinbras had chosen to talk about wolves.

The tween sat leaning forward on the edge of a rough-hewn chair, his face glowing golden in the light of the fire, all the better to match the mischievous flame that flickered behind his eyes at all times of day. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to the elbow beneath his cloak, as if to silently declare that he could handle far worse conditions, and probably had—or at least, that’s what he’d like you to think. He’d let his dark hair grow nearly to his shoulders, and it only served to mystify his character in the eyes of the children seated at his feet.

“It was a day much, much colder than this one, with snow as high as my shoulders,” Fortinbras began, and Bilbo believed he could hear his father’s disbelieving scoff from where he sat sipping warm ale at a nearby table.

“My companions and I were crossing the Misty Mountains,” the young hobbit continued, “traveling against the wind. It howled and howled and bit at our faces like… like a thousand knives.” (Fortinbras was not as skilled with description as he fancied himself.) “We could barely see where we were going through the falling snow. It was swirling around us with no end in sight.”

Bilbo leaned forward with interest. He loved stories, and he heard them on a regular basis from his mother. But to hear them from someone as young as Fortinbras, who had already seen so much and, if his tales were to be believed, been so brave, was a special treat. One day, when he was as big as his cousin, Bilbo hoped to go on his own adventures. He’d have to remember to bring a handkerchief, he decided, wiping his dripping nose again.

Fortinbras had finished describing the wind and swirling snow, in more than enough detail than was probably necessary, and moved on. “Night fell,” he said, “and we ducked into a nearby cave for shelter. It was a tight fit. Why, it was hardly any bigger than that blanket you’re sitting on now.”

The children assessed their crowded surroundings with wide eyes.

“There was no room for a fire in the cave, and outside the snow would put it out in a second. So we huddled together for warmth, with only the dim moonlight to see by. It took quite some time, but eventually we all fell asleep. Our rest didn’t last very long, though, because in the dead of night we heard something outside. Something terrifying.”

Bilbo felt Sigismond, the cousin closest to him in age, grab him by the sleeve. Bilbo straightened up, proud that he hadn’t been the one to show fear, although he certainly felt it. He turned to make certain that his parents were still where he left them. Belladonna caught his eye and gave him a wink, shawl still wrapped snugly around her. Bungo, meanwhile, was too focused on polishing off his umpteenth plate of boiled potatoes to look up.

 _Good_ , Bilbo thought as he faced forward again, _everything will be all right_.

Things in Fortinbras’ story seemed far less optimistic. He was in the midst of describing the terrifying sound that woke him and his companions so suddenly. “It was a howl,” he said. “A wolf’s howl. I’ll never forget it for as long as I live.”

At this point Fortinbras shocked his captive audience into a simultaneous gasp by imitating the howl using his own voice. It was like nothing Bilbo had ever heard before. No bird or beast or hobbit or instrument had, to his ear, ever created a sound that instilled such fear in his heart, such worry in his bones.

He felt himself go numb from more than just the cold as he listened to his cousin cry out a wail long and guttural, echoing from the back of his throat like the most melancholy sob. He watched Fortinbras as he formed the howl, head thrown back, eyes closed, brow furrowed, cheeks hollowed as his open lips guided the sound out.

The sound was so sudden and penetrating that it caused the musicians to stall their performance. The older hobbits did the same to their conversations, turning their attention to the baying creature with curly hair at the center of the party.

When Fortinbras finished, his voice dying off into a whimper on his tongue, he was met with complete silence, save for the crackle of the fire and the odd fidget of one of the youngsters shivering—out of fear just as much as the cold at this point. The satisfaction on his face was unmissable as he basked in the quiet awe he had just created.

“It sounded close,” he continued, and his voice carried so much more dread in the newfound silence. “We sat paralyzed with fear, and waited for the worst. That’s when I noticed it—a pawprint, bigger than my own hand, in the snow just outside the cave. It was difficult to see in the darkness, but there was no mistaking it.”

This time Bilbo was the one catching Sigismond’s sleeve. If this story took place on a warm summer afternoon, he wouldn’t be nearly as affected. But as it was, their current surroundings were far too perfect a match. They may not have been in a cave on the side of a mountain, but that didn’t mean wolves couldn’t still creep up on them in the dark. He wasn’t the only child present who quickly scanned the nearby ground for similar prints, shuddering at every bare spot they discovered.

“None of us breathed for what felt like hours,” Fortinbras continued. “And then we saw it. It crept towards the cave opening, growling low and menacing. It was a wolf, white as the snow, with black spots. It was huge. Big enough to fit several hobbits in its belly and still not be full.” One of the listeners in the front row gasped at that. “It bared its teeth at us. They were long and sharp, like… like white knives. We had no escape.”

It was then, just as Fortinbras was about to reveal whether the wolf attacked, and in turn whether he survived that night on the mountainside (his very alive presence on the current evening and in the current location entirely irrelevant, in the opinion of the children listening, to the suspense of the story), that he was interrupted by another terrifying howl, this one coming from the opposite side of the bonfire. It had a slightly higher pitch, but it was unmistakably meant to mimic the same animal.

“Mimic” was a hopeful word in the minds of those who heard the sound. Meanwhile, the backs of those minds provided some very unsettling suggestions. Like, for instance, that it was the howl of a very real wolf that had somehow infiltrated their cosy celebration, ready to pounce and enjoy a juicy feast of its own.

A few of the smallest hobbits cried out at the sound, while Bilbo and the older ones sat in wide-eyed silence, waiting for what would come next. But perhaps the most notable reaction came from Fortinbras himself, who tensed in his seat, head snapping in the direction of the howl.

There was half a moment of stunned silence before it happened.

A wolf—black and white, just like Fortinbras had described, although not quite as big—leapt into the firelight towards the storyteller, growling fiercely. Fortinbras let out a tremendous shriek and took off running, overturning his chair in the process. Several of the smaller hobbits did the same, shouting in their little voices and instinctively running to find their parents.

Bilbo, heart pounding, turned to where he’d last seen his own, but he found only Bungo there now, sitting with his head in his hands. Yet he didn’t look sad or frightened. It was the way he acted when Bilbo’s mother was doing something she shouldn’t.

His mother…

Bilbo turned back around to where the wolf had appeared, but everything was different now.

It wasn’t a wolf at all. It was Belladonna Baggins in her black and white shawl, her raven hair—which had looked so very much like fur only a moment ago—falling over her face as she doubled over with laughter. All at once, Bilbo felt overwhelming relief wash over him like a warm bath.

Had this been a Baggins gathering, the crowd’s reaction would have been very different. As it was, these were Tooks, and they found the whole thing very amusing. The adults broke out into a chorus of applause. Isumbras, Fortinbras’ father, gave his sister a hearty pat on the back. The tween himself, who had fled so quickly that some believed he’d never be seen again, returned after a short time with a hanging head and a sheepish expression. He received a playful hair tousle from his wolf of an aunt and couldn’t help but smile.

By the by even the children, who had momentarily believed their cousins’ story to have come true before their very eyes, withdrew themselves from their parents’ comforting embraces and laughed along with the rest of the party. The band started up again, and the night continued its jolly course.

Bungo, however, was decidedly not a Took, and his response was slightly less approving.

“Belladonna,” he began as they started the trip back home, lantern in hand to guide the way.

“Oh, it was only a bit of fun,” she insisted before he could chide her. “Anyway, it serves him right for trying to frighten the children.”

“ _He_ frightened them? And what did _you_ do, then?

“They realized it was me in a second. Didn’t you, Bilbo?”

Bilbo made a face and shrugged. Bungo looked at his wife with raised eyebrows.

Belladonna harrumphed at that. “Well, surely you enjoyed seeing your cousin get a scare.”

Bilbo thought back on it—Fortinbras’ terrified expression, the way his arms flailed about as he escaped his chair, the girlish scream he let out—and nodded.

“See?” Belladonna said to Bungo triumphantly. “All worth it.”

Bungo sighed, and Bilbo knew his parents well enough now to recognize the timbre of fondness in the sound.

They were almost to The Hill, ready for one last mug of cider before crawling under their blankets and never wanting to come out again, when Bilbo thought to ask.

“Mama, was it true?”

“Was what true?”

“Was Fortinbras ever really attacked by a wolf?”

Belladonna pulled her shawl over her head to hide her smile. “Not before tonight, my dear.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love the bits about Bilbo's life that are scattered throughout The Hobbit, and I was in the mood to write something wintry, so I ended up with this little something. Hope you enjoyed!
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://myrtlebroadbelt.tumblr.com).


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